[asterisk-biz] Experimental/new VoIP rate search engine.

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Sun, 2009-01-04 at 19:53 -0500, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
>   My concern would be various tricks providers could use to fool any
> IP only automated tools.  There are classic examples of providers
> providing gateways to ping, etc that *clearly* have ICMP optimized and
> may even be in different address space than the actual equipment used
> to terminate the call (read: RTP endpoint addresses, etc).
> 

which is why I suggested looking at the media gateways, which are the
rtp endpoint addresses.


>   An audio analysis tool like recqual cannot easily be fooled by such
> practices because it tests actual audio quality through to the PSTN.
> Any underlying problems (network, host, implementation) will be
> reflected in the actual audio quality.
> 

But the problem with that is that recqual no matter how good it is can
only check based on where its run, it cannot check for any other network
that its not on.  And it can only detect issues at the time the test was
run, issues come and go, look at broadvoice, they either work well or
not at all and it floats from which gateway the call is going through at
any given time.  Further the particular route that is used at that
particular time the call is made can influence results.  Due to ratio
concerns some providers will dump traffic onto a link they would not
normally to balance it and keep that trunks routes costs lower, so the
sum of calls for that billing cycle can influence call quality.

As such using tools like that can be highly misleading as to quality,
why I just suggested looking at how well connected the network is where
the proxies and media gateways are located and suggested not doing a
quality ranking based on the service since its the sum of all the parts
at the time that the test was performed and unless you do this from many
origination points over an extended duration, and is kept current the
results can be misleading at best.


>   I would be willing to provide some expertise and maybe even hosting
> for this effort.  Listing in the directory could require a minimum
> number of recqual test calls to determine a baseline of quality.  As
> long as the test runs were done with some consistency the results
> shouldn't be skewed that much.
> 

that is a start but the tests have to be ongoing, it may work well
initially, then a surge of customers start using the provider, and their
quality degrades until they increase capacity.  Silent back end route
changes can have a similar effect, and you have to have different
destination numbers all over as they would also be influenced by the
routes that provider uses.  What reasonable provider does not LCR at the
very least?


I am just saying that quality measurements have to be done many times in
an ongoing effort per provider, with multiple origination and
destination points, and all that and even then it can be misleading for
some customers since they may not be as well connected as any of the
test boxes for a given provider but are better connected for others.


-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
pgp key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x8AE5C721

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